Multiple languages in an ASP.NET MVC application?

Question

What is the best way to support multiple languages for the interface in an ASP.NET MVC application? I've seen people use resource files for other applications. Is this still the best way?

Answer 1

If you're using the default view engines, then local resources work in the views. However, if you need to grab resource strings within a controller action, you can't get local resources, and have to use global resources.

This makes sense when you think about it because local resources are local to an aspx page and in the controller, you haven't even selected your view.

Answer 2

I found this resource to be very helpful

Its a wrapper round the HttpContext.Current.GetGlobalResourceString and HttpContext.Current.GetLocalResourceString that allows you to call the resources like this...

// default global resource
Html.Resource("GlobalResource, ResourceName")

// global resource with optional arguments for formatting
Html.Resource("GlobalResource, ResourceName", "foo", "bar")

// default local resource
Html.Resource("ResourceName")

// local resource with optional arguments for formatting
Html.Resource("ResourceName", "foo", "bar")

The only problem I found is that controllers don't have access to local resouce strings.